The 37th Gordon Research Conference on Cancer was held at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire during the week of August 22-26, 1983. The format of the conference followed that established in previous years. Admission to the meeting was limited to between 100 and 150 attendees, including scientists and physicians from academic, clinical, government and industrial institutions. The topic of the conference was "Mechanisms and Models in Cancer Research," and it emphasized recent progress on basic mechanisms in cancer and novel models, both human and animal, that could provide new sources of progress for the future. Presentations covered selected aspects of viral oncogenesis, cytogenetics, multi-stage carcinogenesis, cellular interactions, cancer biology and immunology, tumor progression, and new approaches for cancer treatment. In addition to introductory comments by a chairperson, each session had one presentation on basic mechanisms in cancer and one presentation on a related model for cancer research, in an attempt to stimulate interest in and focus discussion on the applications of basic research to problems of current clinical relevance to cancer.